


Rite of Passage

by ShellyFanFic



Series: SEAL Team Week 2021 [1]
Category: SEAL Team (TV)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, SEAL Team (TV) Week 2021, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28811802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShellyFanFic/pseuds/ShellyFanFic
Summary: SEAL Team Week 2021 fic for Sunday - prompt: Childhood
Series: SEAL Team Week 2021 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112318
Comments: 8
Kudos: 70





	Rite of Passage

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first story in a while. Be gentle with me!  
> Alana didn't die, and I played around with the kids ages a little bit to make things work.

It was a beautifully warm evening. The golden hour was fast approaching, and the sun burnished the tree tops red and gold as the children laughed and squealed with delight. As they raced past again Naima called to them, “Another 15 minutes guys and it will be time to head home. School tomorrow.” Her words were met with a short-lived groaning disapproval before they resumed their activities.

So far, they had played princesses tea party (a picnic with tiaras), NFL heroes (a convoluted version of tag with a football thrown in) and swimming champions (a splash about in the pool). Clay seemed to have had just as much fun as the kids he had been entertaining.

They had all stopped briefly for a delicious meal of Sonny’s barbecued tri-tips, Alana’s cheesy potatoes and a generous side of Naima’s homemade slaw. The kids spent 30 minutes or so playing the most intense game of ‘snap’ ever while they let their food settle. Clay had taken advantage of the quiet time and finally joined the ‘bigger boys’ for a cold beer. The mocking from Sonny had been merciless, but Clay was having a fun time and rose above it.

The respite was short lived and now Clay ran up and down the yard with the same boundless youthful energy as the three kids and one dog he was playing with. As they finished their fourth 100m sprint (length of the yard jog), Clay played exhausted and let Mikey, Jameelah and even little RJ beat him to the finish.

As they lined up for the next race Brock and Sonny stepped up to join in. Knowing looks were exchanged as everyone recognized things were about to become far more competitive. Naima took the initiative and had the kids line up on one side of the yard and the grown ups (she used the term loosely) on the other.

Jason, Ray and Trent looked on with interest as Metal made his way back out from the bathroom. He picked beers out of the cooler and passed them around. “Jeez, it’s like watching six kids, not three. Twenty says it ends in tears.”

Jason nodded his head in agreement. “I’m in.”

Trent chuckled. “Nobody’s betting against you.”

Alana gave them all a disapproving look. “I think it’s great to see. Clay didn’t have a normal childhood. This is stuff he should have experienced as a kid, and from the joy it seems to bring him now? I’d say he missed out a whole lot of it.”

“Damn straight.” Naima chipped in. “Now those other two idiots…”

Jason nodded again, “I know, I know. It’s still gonna end in tears.” He laughed and clinked his bottle against Metals.

“As long as it’s not _my_ baby girl’s tears.”

“Oh-ho lookie here, protective Daddy alert. You just wait Ray until it’s real boyfriends chasing her, not just our boys.”

“Yeah, that’s real funny Jase. Hilarious. You just see who’s chasing after Emma next year when she’s headed off to college.” That earned Ray a glare from both Jason and Alana, but further debate was put aside when the distinct crunch and scuff of gravel was inevitably followed by a child crying.

The women were up first and discovered RJ upset and Clay bleeding on the ground. While Alana went to Clay, Naima’s mothering instincts overtook the nurse in her. She gathered her crying child into her arms checking him over for damage. “RJ, baby. Tell Mama what happened?”.

“Blondezilla gone fell down like a wussy and skinned his knees.”

Sonny realised his mistake just as soon as the words had passed his lips. Clay scoffed in disbelief and Jameelah stood with her hands on her hips and that same pout and death stare that she could only have learned from her Mother.

“You shouldn’t lie Uncle Sonny. Mommy says that however bad the truth is, she would always rather have that than a lie…” She turned to Naima and Alana before she continued, “Uncle Clay was winning. Uncle Sonny tripped Uncle Clay and then Uncle Clay fell, and he cussed and scared RJ and made him cry. And Uncle Brock laughed at them both and called them a pair of dicks.”

An angry Naima Perry, child on one hip and hand on the other mirroring her daughter's stance was a fearsome sight and Sonny almost laughed at Brock backing away from the scary ass woman. He momentarily pondered the purpose of the armed services, reasoning the government could just send Naima and ‘Lana to glare terrorists into submission.

“Sonny Quinn, you and I will be having some words… now.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

xxx

While Sonny was receiving his dressing down Alana and Mikey helped Clay to his feet. He was up and moving stiffly towards the kitchen, Alana strolling along at his pace with her hand at the small of his back. “Come on Kiddo, let’s get you patched up.”

Trent whistled as they passed by. “That’s some impressive gravel rash there, Spense.”

Clay grimaced. “Yeah, I’m kind of regretting the shorts right now.”

“Want me to go get the kit?”

Alana put her arm around his waist as he hobbled up the porch steps. “No, I have it covered. I live with Jason remember. We have a _plentiful_ supply of first aid equipment.”

In the kitchen, Alana encouraged Clay to jump up and sit on the worktop next to the faucet where her own kids (and Jason) had sat before him. She passed him wet kitchen towels to start cleaning the worst of the dirt from around his skinned knees and grazed shins as she pulled out her well-stocked medical kit.

As she took out the saline spray and gauze to irrigate the wounds Alana began chatting to distract him. “If I had a dollar for every time I’d done this, I’d be a rich woman.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. You seem pretty adept at it.”

“Practise makes perfect.”

Content that the wound was as clean as could be for now, she worked carefully with sterile tweezers to pull out some pieces of gravel which had become embedded. “I’ll be as gentle as I can.”

“That’s okay. Anything you could do would be gentle. I’m used to Trent.”

Alana laughed at that. “Yeah, Jason says he does what he needs, but his bedside manner is lacking.” Once satisfied that she had all the sizeable pieces out she reached for the antiseptic. “This will sting a bit, but we have to make sure it’s clean, okay?”

“Okay.”

As she looked up at Clay sat on the counter with his bloody knees, she couldn’t help but think how young he looked. “So, apart from _this_ , did you have a good day?”

Clay flinched a little at the sting of the antiseptic but then smiled widely. “I had the _best_ day. I didn’t have a whole lot of ‘fun’ playtime growing up. We did play, and I learned plenty, but everything – even play - had some larger purpose, it was a means to teach some life lesson or necessary survival skill. With the passage of time, I can see how much I missed out on… not just in Liberia.”

Clay’s smile faded and his expression became more sombre. He looked down and kicked his feet a little nervously, reminding her of Mikey. Happy that Clay’s right shin would be just fine left uncovered Alana turned her attention to his left. His tan skin was grazed but peppered with deeper gashes from the sharp gravel. She let the silence linger as she applied the dressing and then moved on to his knees. When he spoke again his voice was small, almost child-like.

“You know, I don’t think my Mom ever did this for me. I feel like… surely having your Mom bandage a cut knee is kind of a rite of passage. I never had that. I don’t remember her _ever_ comforting me.”

Alana pressed down the dressings to make sure they would stay before lifting his chin so that she could see his face. His eyes were full of unshed tears and her heart broke for him. She knew Clay took time to trust people, and in sharing a part of his childhood with her he had given her a precious gift. She chose her words carefully.

“Clay, I’m sorry for all that you missed out on as a child. I can’t make that up to you now, no matter how much I want to. But I can promise you that if you need company, or to talk, or someone to clean your cuts and scrapes… I will always be here for you.”

With that she wiped the tears that had spilled onto his cheeks, kissed him on the forehead and started to pack up the kit.

Clay gingerly made his way down from the counter just as Jason blustered in the back door with Jameelah hanging off one leg and RJ off the other. The kids jumped down and raced to the bathroom to wash up before heading home, ice creams all round having cured RJ’s distress. Jason cast an assessing eye over his rookie. “Hey, you all good, Sunshine?”

Clay glanced over at Alana who was washing her hands. She winked at him and smiled. “Yeah, yeah I’m all good.”


End file.
